ZhengSheng 8.0 inches Fixed Blade Knife - Perfect PVD Titanium Coating DC53 Steel Blade Bowie Knife with Leather Sheath for Camping, Hiking, Survival

I will share my initial impressions, I haven’t put this knife to hard work outdoors yet, but being a knife enthusiast and also having a KA-BAR (USMC version; I will shorten the name to “K-B” in the review), I can compare the two, since it’s clear where the inspiration came from when designing this Chinese blade. - It has a thicker back/spine. It’s a bit longer in the blade and in the handle, thus a bit heavier overall but not by a whole lot. - The packaging was, actually, much more substantial and “premium” than when I received my K-B. The blade was oiled, the box was quite thick and strong, and plenty of anti-humidity bags inside. K-B has an effective but less impressive packaging. I know some folks love a very nice box :) Personally, I like the longer handle, it allows a slightly different grip, that I would appreciate when it’s time for it to work. If you have larger hands, you will love how it feels. The hand-guards also look and feel much more substantial than on the K-B. Whether it’s warranted or not, but visually, to me, the hand-guards look very nice and give extra confidence when gripping the knife. The handle’s leather is of Good quality, and the scabbard appears to be well-made as well. It’s made of slightly thicker leather, and locks in the knife very well, just like the K-B’s scabbard. No rattle. The stitching though is done well-enough but I think K-B’s leather scabbard is stitched, visually, more substantially. I can’t say how it would be in the field over the years (hopefully), just sharing an observation. It’s a great feeling and looking scabbard overall. Quite minimalist but appears to be strong. Reminds me of the K-B’s scabbard in the design, but slightly thicker. No tool marks or scratches, which is awesome. Nice and old-school, to me well-made leather scabbards feel better than plastic ones, but I don’t live in jungles either. I still gently oil all real leather time to time. It’s sharp right out of the box. No problems with the edge. The black coating is fairly even, I have a little spot at the very beginning of the edge, near the handle, where it’s missing the coating. No big deal for me, but my K-B has more even coating without any missed spots (where it’s supposed to be). Again, no big deal. I always keep my knives clean and oiled when they are not working. Overall, the way it feels, the presence of the full-tang vs. the narrow tang as on the K-B, this knife means business. Steel is supposedly good but I won’t know until later. Without extensive testing, I can say that the knife looks and feels in the hand very solid. It seems a lot of thought went into the design, and with the full-tang they did an awesome job. I can’t say that this is better or worse than K-B right now. Both knives are great. K-B’s lower weight and length is not a minus. Also, its narrow tang has been tested for decades and is fairly substantial. But this Chinese knife feels like they tried to make no compromises and develop a knife that is good for more tasks than K-B, and may even be stronger. The balance point is more towards the handle, reminds me of my F-S in that regard, so while being slightly heavy than K-B, it still feels lively in the hand. I appreciate that. Magnum Tanto from ColdSteel is much more blade-heavy. I think it really depends on the personal preference and intended task, one way is not better than the other. Just an observation that may make a difference for some. For now, when I go camping and work in the yard, I will set aside the K-B, keep it for display as an artifact of the 20th Century, and give this Chinese knife a chance to prove itself. I do like the thicker spine, longer handle and blade, as well as the full-tang A Lot. It looks and feels very promising. If the steel holds well, it would be one of my favorite fixed-edge knives. And in that case it would be a very good, excellent, really, value for money.

So to preface I'm a guy who loves a good bowie knife, I have a fairly decent collection but wanted one in the classic stacked leather handle style. I bought this after searching extensively, the choice was between the kabar, a case, and the ontario marine combat knife. I picked this one due to better materials and geometry combined with the peace of mind the seller gave me. Before I bought this I contacted the seller to show me the tang, he sent the above photos, ordered immediately after seeing it. My experience after a short bit of ownership and use: Out of the box this was very well ground and came with a well done paper slicing edge. Nice fit and finish! Initial inspection is that this is well constructed, testing with a magnet confirmed that the tang runs all the way through the end and is a substantial tang all the way to the pommel. The sheath seems well made out of leather, the blade fits snugly and the retention strap actually secures it in place. I planned on grilling up some steaks today so I put this to work chopping and batoning up some kindling and shaving up a few feather sticks on some hard maple. The spine scraped a fire steel well, which surprised me as I thought the coating would not let me do that. After using this (with a significant amount of HARD chopping through 7" diameter seasoned maple to get it to fit sideways in my grill) the edge showed zero deformation where in other knives I have usually have a bit of edge rolling and blunting, I'm positive that this has a good heat treatment. I did some test cutting on 1" rope and cardboard for edge retention which was pretty fantastic, it holds its edge as good as my s35vn knives and better than my other knife in similar steel (sleipner). The flat grind slices well, out performing the majority of my other large knives in slicing tasks. In hand the knife is comfortable and offers solid grip, it's fast and lively; balanced right at my index finger for speed and utility. If you have big hands you'll appreciate the ample handle length and how well it fills the hand even when wearing gloves. All in all I love this knife! It's like a bigger kabar that outperforms the original in cutting and edge retention. Fast and snappy like one of cold steel's bowies and is a proper fighting knife, though you'll have to sharpen the swedge your self if you want back cuts. I'll update if I have any issues in the future, but I doubt I will. This will be on my hip the next time I'm in the field.

Nicely made, very sharp. At first I thought the handle was wood, but it is leather - very dense pressed leather. Only drawback is that the finish is very slippery - you may want to scuff it up or add your own grip for safety. The instructions say you're not supposed to store the knife in its leather sheath, but I spoke with the seller and they said not to worry about it. So.... Hopefully they're right?

I read good reviews on this knife so I chose to buy it over others I was considering because it was made in China and I'm looking forward to pissing people off. My juvenile sense of humor aside, this is a great knife. I would have paid twice as much and still been impressed. It's got a heavy, thick blade that came sharp enough to shave the hair on my arm. The slightly tapered handle is very comfortable, while the finger guard is thick but not too wide (a personal preference). I'm not the type of person who uses a knife to do a hatchet's job and complain about the knife letting me down .. so barring some sort of catastrophic manufacturing defect I don't foresee this piece letting me down.

Wow, this thing is built. Much, much better than I was expecting. I like stacked-leather knives, like the good ol' Kabar. The photo shows four of my knives for comparison, from left: Rough Rider bowie, FengSheng, Kabar, and Case. As you can see, the FengSheng is a bit larger than the Kabar and Case. I'm really impressed with it. It's just as sturdy as can be. This is my first experience with FengSheng. I'll need to check out some of their other knives. Oh--and the box was impressive, too. And like the Kabar and Case, it has a really good leather sheath (probably the thickest of the three).